Various techniques are available for carrying out copy operations on files in file systems. One conventional copy technique copies files from one storage disk to another when the disks are connected via a high-speed connection. One copy technique directs a processor to read a page of memory into cache. The technique then adjusts the cached page to simulate a write operation. Another copy technique aims to reduce memory copies by dealing with the write cache directly. Still another copy technique performs a simple copy where data from a source file are read into a buffer in memory and written out to a destination file.
In some arrangements, storage systems permit deduplication operations. A deduplication operation frees up storage space by using pointers for duplicate copies of a file that point to data stored for an original copy and then deleting the redundant data stored for the duplicate copies.